Woodhaven's Historic Neir's Tavern is 190 Years Old This Year
In 1829, Queens was mostly farmland, woods, swamp and empty space. But it was also home to a raucous racetrack that regularly drew tens of thousands of spectators—some of the largest crowds in the country. In the years before the Civil War, horses from the north and south would face off at Union Course, a mile-long oval track laid out across what is now Woodhaven.
Today, Union Course is long gone. The tin-stamping facility that turned the neighborhood into a factory town has shuttered. The Long Island Rail Road’s first accident—when a train full of people on their way to Union Course collided with a cow—has been largely forgotten. And most of Woodhaven’s empty space has been subdivided into small lots full of mismatched houses and storefronts.
But across from what was once the main entrance to that famous racecourse, a pub that opened its doors in 1829 to serve the throngs of spectators is still very much alive: Neir’s Tavern, one of a few watering holes that claims to be the oldest continuously operating bar in New York.
“It’s a time capsule,” says Jason Antos, an author and historian at the Queens Historical Society. “It’s probably one of the oldest commercial properties in Queens, if not the oldest.”
Woodhaven itself was not founded until 1835, according to Ed Wendell, a lifelong resident and the president of the Woodhaven Cultural and Historical Society. “This is a place that predates the community it sits in,” he says. “Stock markets have crashed, we’ve had World Wars, and yet this place is still chugging along, probably more famous and well-known now than it has been in its whole 190 years.”
While some of the details of its early years are lost to history or contradicted by different sources, Antos says Neir’s—then known as The Old Blue Pump House—is marked as an “inn” or “hotel” on old maps of the area going back to the mid-19th century. At the time, according to an account by the late historian Vincent F. Seyfried, the neighborhood was home to a smattering of such hotels, “little two-story frame establishments of eight or 10 rooms and saloon downstairs,” which “served hearty meals and offered foaming glasses of the beers popular in that era.”
Less than 10 years after it opened, the Old Blue Pump Room was rebranded as The Old Abbey, just as the crowds frequenting the area began to develop a more unsavory reputation. The bar changed hands a few times; meanwhile Union Course became a “horrible place” associated with “[cheaters], thieves, housebreakers, fighting men and rumsellers,” according to an 1854 story in the New York Tribune. The Flushing Journal called it “a resort for scoundrels.”
But though “it could get rowdy in there,” according to Antos, the bar stayed open. Around this time, a new owner cleaned up The Old Abbey, and soon after, Union Course across the street was converted into a trotting course. During the Civil War, races were halted, and the racetrack was used as an encampment, full of soldiers and their tents. By the 1870s, the track had been sold and abandoned. “The fence that once surrounded the course disappeared piece by piece into the fireplaces of local residents,” according to Seyfried.
Though trolleys and development had come to Woodhaven, and its population was expanding quickly, the bar that had long been associated with the racetrack might have closed without any spectators to support it. In 1898, however, Louis Neir—the man who would give current-day Neir’s its name—bought the establishment, renaming it Neir’s Social Hall and making it a year-round destination. He added a catering hall, a ballroom and even a small bowling alley in the back.
During Prohibition, by most accounts, the bar roared on as a speakeasy. And at some point during this era, Mae West is said to have performed there, though that’s difficult to confirm.
The Neir family held onto the bar for more than 60 years, until selling it in 1967, when it was renamed Union Course Tavern. And then, for decades—despite its historical significance—the bar seemed to fade into obscurity. “For many years, when I was growing up, Union Course Tavern was an old-timer’s bar,” says Wendell. “Quiet, sleepy.” As recently as 2005, The New York Times described “yellowing curtains embroidered with flowers hang[ing] in the window” and no sign out front.
Around 2009, it nearly closed for good, to be turned into a laundromat or a bodega. But Loycent Gordon, who came to the United States with his parents at the age of 10 and grew up in Queens, says he could not let that happen—he felt he owed something to his borough, and decided to save the historic watering hole. He worked with a few friends to take over the rundown bar, renovate it and re-open it as Neir’s—in honor of the family who had kept it open the longest.
“They carried it on for generations and made it what it was: a community gathering place, where all are welcome,” says Gordon. “That was something that I felt was more important than putting my name on the building: to honor the people who came before me.”
Today, the brown-shingled house that’s still home to Neir’s is tucked away on a residential street a few blocks from the J train. The sign in front features a jockey on a racehorse, a tribute to its earliest beginnings. The shiny mahogany bar is more than 150 years old. The silver tin ceiling and green pressed tin walls have been restored. The bartenders still serve drafts using the original tap system, which uses ice to keep the beer cold. Old wooden cabinets are stuffed with aging books, drinking glasses and shells, with board games stacked on a shelf in front. The walls are crowded with mementos: newspaper clippings (Daily News: “Old Spirit”), blurry photos of Ben Stiller (Tower Heist was filmed there) and Robert DeNiro (so was Goodfellas), a handwritten letter from a World War II veteran who was married there in 1946.
And for Gordon, that letter—from William Burlingame, who wrote to Gordon in 2014 and died just this year—represents what Neir’s is all about. “Neir’s Tavern is not just about Goodfellas and Mae West and famous things. It’s the people’s museum,” says Gordon. “Every day that Neir’s is still open, ordinary people’s memories live on.”
Gordon recently formed the Neir’s 190 Committee, so he can work with the Woodhaven community and others who care about the bar to develop a sustainable plan for the future—he’s been running the bar for 10 years now as a tenant, which has had its challenges. Gordon wants to get Neir’s to its 200th birthday in 2029—and beyond.
Its many fans are on board. On the surface, says Wendell, Neir’s might not look particularly unusual. “But once you start factoring in its place in history, that really makes it stand out,” he says. “You look around and think: How could we afford to lose something like this?"
